Hasnain says:

Such a well written human interest story. Makes you think, and want to read more stories like this - and maybe even get the book (which covers even more examples of abandoned cities and islands)

“How would you live on your own private island? This is how the Rosies did it: They kept chickens, they kept cattle, they kept house. Their five children ran wild, scrambling in the rocky geos and paddling in the shallows (although they didn’t climb trees, because there are no trees). They weeded and darned and mended nets. They scavenged on the shoreline for items washed up – revelations from the outside world. They read everything they could get their hands on. They wrote letters, and received them too: handwritten notes addressed simply ‘Swona’, or sometimes to their house, which was named for them: Rose Cottage. They played instruments, and formed for a while an island orchestra with fiddle, pipes, squeezebox and a makeshift set of drums made of oil cans. Their father built boats, manned the tiny lighthouse, and in 1935, after a cargo ship ran aground off the western shore, salvaged enough from the wreckage to install electricity in their house – powered by windmill and a diesel generator. After that they listened to the radio: news, plays, tunes, the shipping forecast.”

Posted on 2022-02-19T07:32:15+0000